


sim sala bim (you a bit dim?)

by jelly_spine



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fantasy, M/M, Romance, Underage Drinking, rewrote Again ay lmaooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 23:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8264339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jelly_spine/pseuds/jelly_spine
Summary: genies' characteristics include:- track suits- gold braces- separate stomach for ice cream probably- lee donghyuck(originally called 'ice cream, sweet nothings and magic')





	

**Author's Note:**

> yeah um hi? i'm back on my rewrite bullshit but i promise this is the last time for this fic i'll never touch it again  
> rated t for cursing, slight violence (dedicated to lisa xo) and underage drinking. also if u can't take cheesiness this is ur cue to close the tab. oh, and seulgi's age's been shifted down quite a bit  
> [vietnamese translation of the old version lmao](https://antidxte.wordpress.com/2017/02/24/ice-cream-sweet-nothings-and-magic-markhyuck/)

A genie, huh. In Mark’s mind (hypothetically speaking, of course—he loves hypothesises), there are only two forms such a creature can take: the blue, bearded blob from Aladdin. Boisterous, cautiously wise, metamorphosing like child’s play. Or a middle-aged woman who’s lived in the same flat her whole life and only wears velvet track suits. Overweight, lax, knowing.

Not this thin boy with a heaving, swelling chest. Mouth open, sloppy with fatigue. Thick, humid breaths rushing past two rows of braced teeth. Clad in thin, short pyjamas and a rugged coat and dirty sneakers. Knees red with effort. Heels knocking together impatiently.

“You had something you wanted to say to me?” the boy utters, lowering his hand from the doorbell he was buzzing urgently just twenty seconds ago, looking strangely relieved. He slides it into the pocket of his coat and apparently touches something nasty, because his lips purse in disgust. Used tissues, Mark imagines.

Not this boy Mark’s never seen in his life. This boy who tires of waiting for him to wake from his shocked stupor and continues, “Didn’t jump out of bed and run here all the way across the city just to have you act like you never summoned me.” He angles his head, tilted a bit to the left, so Mark can’t escape his gaze. “So? At least buy me an ice cream if you aren’t going to talk.”

“Who are you?” Mark finally asks.

The boy lets out a short, surprised chortle. “Why,” he replies, “your personal genie, of course. Frankly, I’m the best thing that could happen to you.”

Mark’s getting dizzy. What, what, “ _What?_ ”

The boy examines the contents of the coat’s pockets, as though it wasn’t his. Pulling out a pack of mint chewing gum with a pleasantly surprised hum, he says half-heartedly, “Alright, then. What you’re feeling is completely normal. You’re thinking, genies aren’t real, la-di-dah. Am I right?” He doesn’t wait for Mark to answer. Not that he could. “Right. That’s why I’m going to give you a quick rundown.”

That’s the moment the boy chooses to wait for Mark to answer. Eventually, Mark manages, “Okay.”

“Hm. My name is Lee Donghyuck. I am the son of a genie, who was also the offspring of a genie, and so on. You get the jazz.” Donghyuck points at the pendant resting between Mark’s collarbones. He’s still a tiny bit out-of-breath. Air bleeding through his words heavily. “That there is the pendant used to summon someone from my family. I don’t know what kind of yard sale you got that from, but it’s why I’m here, ready to fulfil five wishes.” He does a half-hearted _ta-dah_.

“Aren’t genies supposed to come out of bottles?” Mark asks.

“Wow, okay,” Donghyuck huffs, seeming very mildly offended, like one part of soda diluted with five parts of water, “so we’re going into the Disney stereotype, then?” Mark rules out Aladdin’s blue blob from his hypothesis carefully. It must show on his face, because Donghyuck laughs. “Nah, I’m just messing with you. A bunch of families use lamps. My friend told me about a family with a toilet brush as the summoning device.” Then, he says, more to himself than Mark, “Hah. Funny.”

Mark makes a few mental notes (he loves those too): for starters, Donghyuck talks a lot. Abundantly, thirstily, fluidly. But chatterboxes like him, they sometimes have a penchant for particularly convincing lies. “How do I know you aren’t just a random dude?” Mark asks. A few seconds after he’s shut his mouth he comes up with a continuation, “How do I know your biggest magical talent isn’t some basic card trick?”

Donghyuck frowns and laughs. “You got me there. I don’t have cards with me right now, though, so you’ll have to settle for real magic. Boring, I know. Ready? For yes, nod.”

Apparently, Mark doesn’t do it fast enough, so Donghyuck grabs him by the chin and makes him nod. That brings Mark to his second mental note—Donghyuck is corporeal. As in, not Mark’s mind’s invention. That only makes the whole situation seem simultaneously more comprehensible and crazy.

Donghyuck rubs his palms together. Very hard, very fast, until light starts shining through his palms’ flesh. Red, like sunlight through closed eyelids. Mark sees his cheeks and ears shining bright pink. And then, Donghyuck unglues his hands from each other, and there, right there, on his palm, rests a fuzzy peach.

Mark takes the fruit Donghyuck’s holding towards him and turns it around in his hands. “Was this one of my five wishes?”

“Oh, no, that was like a free trial, you know,” Donghyuck clarifies. “Next wish is already the real deal. You have to think very carefully about it.”

Mark guesses he’s got to accept that genies aren’t a mere hypothesis anymore. Donghyuck’s right there, neither blue nor middle-aged nor dressed in a track suit. He processes it all without really managing to think about it more than superficially and asks, “You said you wanted ice cream?”

/

Mark thinking about Aladdin when he thinks about genies is fairly self-explanatory. The idea of a middle-aged woman in a track suit thrumming with magic, however, originates from one person and one person only—Mark’s neighbour in Vancouver, when he lived there as a child.

She resided down the hall. Every other Wednesday evening, when Mark’s parents went to the cinema, she looked after him. She had a kid, too, but the daughter was buried too deep in her homework to pay attention to Mark or appreciate her mother’s apple crumble.

The woman let Mark watch television until his eyes were wide and dry. Jump on the bed, up and down. Doodle over the telephone directory with crayons. Press his face and hands against the fish tank’s glass.

Watching Donghyuck trudging towards the grocery store a couple blocks down, looking only remotely cold despite his scant clothing, Mark notes that the woman and Donghyuck do have one thing in common.

It’s the aura, has to be. Opaque, pungent, magic. Hanging off their shoulders like a sheer cloak embroidered with gold. Although, Mark has to admit, Donghyuck wears it a bit better. The scintilla speckled over his slender neck and unusual facial features.

Donghyuck enters the little store. He makes straight for the ice cream freezer situated at the back. “Want anything?” he asks, glaze gliding over the ice creams on offer. He taps his fingers against the glass lid of the freezer.

“Something with lemon, please,” Mark answers. To dilute his feeling of displacement, he rearranges cans of tuna on a shelf. Labels facing front.

Donghyuck pulls open the freezer and shivers softly as he plunges his hand inside. He takes out an ice lolly and a cone, and directs his gaze to Mark for approval, but Mark’s distracted. “You, uh,” Donghyuck starts, tongue darting around in his mouth, looking for words. “I just realised I don’t know your name?”

“Mark.”

“Mark. Okay. Is this one fine?” Donghyuck says, holding it up once more.

Mark nods. Donghyuck pads to the checkout and grins at the girl behind the register. A little baffled, she smiles back before scanning the ice creams. Mark only steps in to pay. They leave the store. Donghyuck shivers gently when he steps outside, as if he’d landed in a gigantic freezer. Mark’s blood trickles languidly to his cheeks.

Mark looks at Donghyuck’s bare knees. “Aren’t you cold?” He gets goose bumps just from looking.

Donghyuck looks down at his legs, as if he’d forgotten he was only wearing shorts. “Not really,” he says, or contemplates aloud. “I have _really_ high body temperature.”

“How come?” Mark asks.

Donghyuck chuckles, eyes downcast. “I’ve had a high fever since I was seven. Or, well, I don’t really know if it should be called a fever, since it’s not a real illness. It’s just how my body is.” He lifts his flannel pyjama shirt. “Try it."

Mark does. He lays his cold hand on the gentle swell of Donghyuck’s stomach. It’s almost scorching, like straight out of a solarium. At first, Donghyuck’s eyes widen in surprise. Then, he settles into the cool feeling and unwraps his ice lolly.

“Yes,” Mark mumbles unintelligently. He takes his hand away. “Warm.”

Donghyuck pops the lolly out of his mouth to smile better. And to abruptly say, “The poem. Was it about a girl?”

Mark repeats, “Poem?”

“Yeah, the one you summoned me with.”

Mark writes poems in secret. Inside the covers of his schoolbooks, behind grocery lists, on napkins. They’re much like song lyrics, only without the music. He takes care to fold them four times and slip them into his pockets or under the foot of the lamp on his desk. To never show them to anyone.

So he asks, “What poem?”

Donghyuck scoffs. “Well, you know, the one,” he tries to elaborate. He squints, as if trying to see the words in the ripples of the air. “The one that goes, _hocus pocus_ , I think. And then something like, _would you please just focus on me_? I don’t know, you’re the one who recited it.”

Mark looks up at the darkening sky, exhaling sticky puffs of embarrassment. He remembers writing that poem down while he waited for his microwave meal to be ready. Toying with his necklace to clear his thoughts. “I summoned you with it?”

Donghyuck sucks on his ice lolly and nods. “Yeah. All you have to do is stroke the pendant, say something cheesy and _voilà_! I’ll fly to you.”

“You heard it all?” Mark asks carefully.

“Oh, no. Only a little bit,” Donghyuck assures Mark. “But it sounded real nice. She’s lucky.”

/

“Wouldn’t have guessed you talked—well, no, _wrote_ this good,” Donghyuck comments, leafing through Mark’s pile of scraps of paper. He’s bent over the kitchen counter. Fruit knife glinting in his hand, blade sticking upwards dangerously. Fingers peach-sticky.

“What do you mean?” Mark asks. He’s leaning against the counter. The edge of the countertop digging into the small of his back.

Donghyuck cranes his neck to look at Mark. He elaborates, “You don’t have the face of a poet.”

Mark frowns. He’s never thought about it. “What do I look like, then?”

“A volleyball player,” Donghyuck replies, grinning like there’s something especially funny about volleyball players, then sets the wad of poems on the counter and goes back to slicing up the peach he’d conjured up earlier. Originally, it was Mark cutting it up, but Donghyuck got tired of watching him fumble with the knife and took over.

“Why don’t you just cut it up with magic?” Mark asks, peering over Donghyuck’s shoulder.

Donghyuck laughs. His shoulder almost hits Mark’s jaw. “Oh, I wish I could. But I only have the power to grant wishes. Nothing more.”

/

Mark lies on his bed, duvet rumpled under his back. No one ever told him genies live in cities’ night club districts and soothe chronical fevers with ice cream and go by the name of Lee Donghyuck. There’s no textbook for it. You don’t hear it from the other kids living in the neighbourhood or your cousins or you classmates like you learn the things adults refuse to tell you because these belong to the things most adults don’t know either.

Not even the great mass called the internet has any explanation. Except for a youtube video with far too many exclamation marks in the title and some obscure website with a single question box in the middle: Have you encountered a genie? [yes] [no] Spooked, Mark closes the tab and puts his thumb over his phone’s front camera.

/

Mark really didn’t mean to do it, but Donghyuck’s standing there, this time dressed in a plain t-shirt and pair of school uniform trousers. Plus the same coat, of course. “Could you at least wait until I’ve changed out of my uniform?” he grumbles, sticking his tongue out, half because of exhaustion and half as a manifestation of, Mark supposes, childish spleen.

It’s a habit of Mark’s. To mumble words under his breath and toy with his necklace or a pen or whatever he can reach while he’s writing. He can’t really help it. “Sorry,” he apologises. He breaks his chocolate bar into two and holds one half out towards Donghyuck. “Chocolate?”

Donghyuck accepts the peace offering. He sits down, shrugging off his coat, and inquires, “Thought of a wish yet?”

Mark shakes his head. “No, not yet.”

Donghyuck moves the chocolate bar around in his mouth. “You’re considering it properly? Huh. Smart,” he comments, as though it wasn’t a common occurrence.

Mark flips the page of the history book on the table in front of him. “What do people usually wish for, then?”

“In the old times they mostly asked for foot wives and palaces,” Donghyuck claims, the corner of his mouth twitching. Mark sees it but speeds right past. The warning signs (the undeniably juvenile curve of Donghyuck’s cheek, the smile threatening to spill past the tight line of his lips, the flamboyant tone of his voice) are there, but he falls for it anyway.

Mark gapes. “You lived then? For real?” The idea of Donghyuck remaining constant, static through the flow of time makes his head spin. Is he only a blink of an eye in the enormous expanse of Donghyuck’s existence?

Donghyuck lifts his chin a bit. “Oh, yeah, sure,” he says. “Great times. But my favourite period is, by far, the ‘70s. The music was so good.”

“Really?” Mark breathes out.

Donghyuck starts crooning Queen but can’t hold it in. He bites his tongue to keep himself from laughing too loud and supplies, “Not really. I’m sixteen. And my mom says the 70s weren’t actually all that great.”

But by then, damn him, Mark can’t get the image out of his head. Vivid blue jean shorts, white socks with two black stripes, colourful print t-shirt. Outdated slang, American disco music, a thread of the last dynasty tied around Donghyuck’s wrist. Charlie’s angels on the rickety tv, gang signs on the backs of leather jackets, the tiny scar under his eye issued by a past time’s caprices—

Mark’s mouth can’t quite keep up with his mind. “I’m a year older than you,” he stumbles off his shinkansen of thoughts lamely.

Donghyuck hums, dismissing the topic. He moves on to the object of Mark’s poetic affections. He asks if she’s the same age as him (“Or are you into older women? You never cease to surprise, Mark Lee.” Mark wonders if he’s really the incalculable party in this) which syllable her name starts with, whether her voice is low or high.

Mark holds on to his precious secret and Donghyuck gets bored. He gets up to skim through the bookshelves. The librarian rattles past with his trolley stacked high with books. All the radiators are on full blast. Donghyuck pulls out a book on Genghis Khan and turns to Mark with a Pepsodent smile.

“I met him once. He was surprisingly unattractive,” Donghyuck says, tapping on the portrait on the cover.

Mark rolls his eyes and asks, “Don’t you have exams to study for, too?” Then, he tacks on half-heartedly, “Unless you genies are somehow exempt from school.”

Donghyuck sits back down and starts riffling through the book. “Oh, yeah, sure I do, but someone’s been taking up quite a bit of my time, lately.” There’s no real accusation in his voice, but Mark squirms anyway.

“It was an accident,” Mark protests.

Donghyuck’s mouth curls into a grin. He turns the book’s pages without even trying to pore through the dense text. At the transition between pages 234 and 235, he moves his wrist a bit too fast and ends up with a papercut on his index finger. He squawks. The librarian gives him a severe look through the gap between book and shelf. Mark’s at a loss as to what to do.

Donghyuck flails all four of his limb, even though only the tip of his finger was damaged. He beats his heels against the vinyl floor and rocks back on his chair. Dramatic, Mark notes, leaning over to look at the open spread. It’s Genghis Khan, leading a group of men, digging his heels into his mighty knobbly-jointed horse’s flanks. Spear raised high, mouth open in a roar, eyes vaguely similar to an ancient Chinese dragon’s. The opposite of this third-millennium mess.

“Hey, kid,” the librarian hisses after half a minute of theatrical whimpering, “no crying in the library.”

Mark giggles quietly. Donghyuck bows his head lazily and promptly forgets anything ever happened. He taps his foot against the floor. Mark suggests they get out of there.

/

Mark pays for the ice cream again. He’s already running calculations in his head on how long his monthly allowance will last. But that’s entirely based on the assumption that they’ll keep seeing each other every day. Maybe he shouldn’t get ahead of himself, of whatever this summoner-summoned relation is, he thinks to himself.

Donghyuck finishes his ice lolly and says, “Bye, then. Remember to think of a wish.”

Mark nods and watches Donghyuck leave. Donghyuck’s halfway over the pedestrian crossing when it comes to Mark. And he doesn’t even have the time to shout before Donghyuck’s turning around to look at him like he felt it. The green pedestrian light starts to blink, indicating that it’s going to turn red soon. Donghyuck stays put.

“I want us both to do amazing in our exams,” Mark hollers, cupping his hands around his mouth. He’s almost too embarrassed to say it in front of the family walking past, but the tips of Donghyuck’s ears are glowing softly, like fireflies clinging to the helixes. “Without studying much,” Mark adds.

Donghyuck’s braces glint. Mark realises he never noticed they’re golden. Donghyuck lifts his hand in the air and snaps his fingers. A flash of light passes through Mark’s head, from the back of his crane to the front, leaving behind a ripple of the same stars you see when you rub your eyes a bit too hard.

Donghyuck ends up getting honked at by three cars and missing his bus. Mark waits with him for the next one. They’re still basking in the warm electricity of magic, oblivious to how freezing the bus stop’s bench is or how the frost in the ground seems to seep through their shoes’ rubber soles.

“I’ve never given anyone an actual wish like this before,” Donghyuck sighs, mist tumbling out of his mouth like something was burning inside him.

Mark glances at Donghyuck through the corner of his eye. “You haven’t?”

Donghyuck shakes his head. “No, that pendant’s been unused for a long time now. Apparently the last summoning in my family happened to my grandpa.” He sandwiches his hands between his thighs, finally aware of the light tingle in his fingertips.

“It’s not like there’s a manual that comes with it,” Mark says carefully. He probably wouldn’t have ended up summoning Donghyuck if the universe didn’t love shoving him around metaphorically. So far he’s kind of fine with it, though. “And the love poem thing isn’t very obvious. We basically met by accident.”

“True,” Donghyuck agrees. “How did you get the pendant, anyway?”

But Mark doesn’t have the time to answer because the bus comes and Donghyuck shoots him a starry, golden grin and climbs into the bus with his heels bouncing off the ground at every step. Mark turns to go home.

/

Mark finds the pendant in a tiny musty little antique shop in July. His cousin’s visiting from their mothers’ hometown on the coast and insists they go inside. The shop’s in the cellar of an old stone house, at the bottom of perilous concrete stairs. Seungwan finds it exciting and Mark’s too drained to refuse.

There’s barely enough space to walk around. A tiny little path weaves between the mahogany desks and armoires and mirrors, wide enough for Mark to put one foot behind the other. Seungwan decides to make an art of it—balancing along an imaginary line like a tightrope walker, arms wide open at her sides and fingers brushing wooden surface after wooden surface, chanting _look look Mark look look look_ as if she wasn’t twenty-three years old.

The shopkeeper’s a little man, his glasses’ lenses thick like bottoms of glass bottles. “Your boyfriend?” he asks Seungwan when she finally reaches the counter. Mark’s stopped to look at little porcelain dogs.

Seungwan laughs. “No, he’s just my cousin,” she explains, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand in mock relief.

“Good. Makes it more painless to stumble across the right constellation,” the man hums. This is the part Seungwan forgets to mention to Mark afterwards. She simply blinks and smiles, mildly perplexed.

Mark chooses a little poodle and brings it up to the counter. The man wraps it in silk paper, sun-freckled hands taping the corners carefully. Then, he reaches under the counter and pulls out a jewellery box. It’s humble dark wood on the outside and worn velvet on the inside, full of tangled necklaces and rings and earrings.

“Here,” he says, pulling out the pendant and holding it out towards Mark. “It’s for you.”

“Oh, I don’t really—” Mark tries to decline, but the man is adamant. Eventually he gives in and takes the pendant. It sits in the middle of his sweaty palm. The locket’s round and scarcely decorated. He looks at the shopkeeper for permission, which is issued to him with an urging nod, and struggles to open it with his blunt fingernails. Seungwan rises on her tippy toes to see over his shoulder.

There’s a note. More specifically one single word on a piece of paper that’s been folded into the smallest of squares. Even more specifically _Lupus_ in round cursive, the ink oddly fresh despite the age of the pendant.

Mark’s mind has already turned it over a hundred times when Seungwan voices out, “The illness?” He shrugs and thanks the shopkeeper.

They weave back out of the boutique. The higher they climb up the stairs and the further they get from the cool of the stone walls, the heavier the air gets. Mark shoulders the oppressive heat and steps out into the blinding early afternoon sunlight, followed closely by Seungwan.

Seungwan stretches, exposing the dark circles of sweat under her arms. “I think I was supposed to tell you something,” she utters and lowers her arms and looks off, at a traffic light at the end of the street bleeding from green into yellow into red.

“Huh,” Mark says. Seungwan forgets a lot and he loses himself a lot. He’s used to it. Like that one time when he was five and Seungwan took him to the playground across the street from his aunt’s flat. Only when her mom asked upon her return she remembered she’d left him behind, sitting on a shark spring rocker, feet dipping silently into the emerald green of an illusory ocean.

/

Next time Mark summons Donghyuck it’s to ask for his number. To avoid calling upon him at an awkward moment, Mark explains.

Donghyuck laughs. “As long as you don’t leak it to any of my crazy fans,” he agrees easily. He takes Mark’s phone, then types in his number.

The first message from Mark’s phone to Donghyuck’s is something like _Donghyuck’s cute_ , written by Donghyuck. Mark feigns disagreement by scrunching his nose and Donghyuck is offended for five seconds before he bounces back, asking if Mark’s written anything new.

“Not really,” Mark admits, shrugging.

Donghyuck comments, “That’s kind of boring.”

Mark agrees.

They sit at the kitchen table. The lamp hanging over the table’s suspended so low their heads almost graze the light bulb and some strands of their hair are washed out pure white like tails of comets when they lean closer to each other to talk about whatever they can think of.

Mark’s mom comes home. She kicks off her heels and walks into the kitchen, carrying a bag of take-out. She looks at Donghyuck calmly. Greets, “Hello.”

“Good evening,” Donghyuck greets back, standing up. “I’m Lee Donghyuck.”

Mark’s mom smiles with half of her mouth. “Nice to meet you, Donghyuck. I’m Mark’s mom.”

Mark gives Donghyuck half of his portion of jjajangmyeon and helps him separate his disposable chopsticks. His mom takes her own food to the living room. She eats at the low table in front of the television, legs crossed in her careful manner.

Donghyuck talks about magic—genies in particular, of course, because he’s only met a handful of witches and fairies and even dragons, he explains around a mouthful of noodles. In the smaller families, like his, summonings are rare so the children assist to bigger families’ wish-grantings.

“Usually they’re called big families ‘cause they get called on a lot,” Donghyuck says, “but the one I was assigned to is physically big, too. There are, like, seven kids? Their summoning device is a little wishing well and five hundred won coins. Youngho and Jaehyun, the middle children, would pick me up from school to take me there. We would sit, waiting for someone to throw a coin and make a wish.”

“Were there lots of wishes, then?”

Donghyuck seems to stop to think about it. “Oh yeah, tons. But there were so many they couldn’t grant most completely. Once a girl asked to win the lotto, but all they could give her was a wallet half-full of money she found on the ground later.”

After all that, Mark feels lame talking about Vancouver and the track suit-clad neighbour. His parents’ close friend who told him to never grow up because that’s no fun. The endless traffic jams on the way home from school. The drives up to the mountains and the smell of pine.

But Donghyuck looks at him with a lopsided grin, chin in palm. Gentle, clement, rapt. Listening.

/

“My pen just moved on its own,” Mark gushes into his phone, leaning against the white tile wall of the school toilets. It’s right after he handed in his first test of the week. “I didn’t even have to think, oh my god!”

“Oh, you usually think?” comes Donghyuck’s voice. Mark has half the mind to summon him and kick him in the shin.

A first-year walks in. He hesitates by the door but Mark doesn’t move from his spot by the sinks so he proceeds to a urinal. To cut the silence and the sound of a zipper opening, Mark says, “We should celebrate.”

Donghyuck hums. “Good idea. How?”

“I don’t know. A restaurant, maybe?” Mark suggests, fiddling with the hem of his uniform blazer. Donghyuck agrees. “But you’ll have to pay for me,” Mark adds.

Donghyuck gasps. “What? Why?”

“I’ve used all of my money on that goddamn ice cream of yours. Sustaining your addiction for multiple weeks hasn’t been very kind on my allowance,” Mark complains.

“Fine. But you’ll have to buy me an ice cream afterwards,” Donghyuck huffs, then laughs.

The first-year comes up to the sink and turns the tap on. He shoots Mark a look through the mirror. Mark finishes the call and goes.

/

The restaurant’s main clientele is exhausted taxi drivers. They sit hunched over their tables, peering at the little tv suspended in the corner of the room. Like grizzly bears dressed in cheap dress shirts, one and a half beers away from keeling over into deep slumber. Football’s on.

Mark and Donghyuck discard their school blazers and roll up their sleeves above their elbows. Mark orders. The waitress nods and pads to the kitchen’s door to shout out the order.

“My class teacher wouldn’t believe I got such good notes without cheating,” Donghyuck says, tapping his fingers against the table.

Someone from the red team scores. A few customers grunt. Mark chuckles. “Mine was only a little bit sceptical. I just told him I studied a lot.”

The waitress kneels at their table and sets down their orders. Donghyuck thanks her. She smiles, straightens up and goes off to take another customer’s order.

“Star student, eh?” Donghyuck teases. Mark rearranges his crossed feet, embarrassed.

Mark feels even more embarrassed lifting his glass of bubbling soda in the air to make a toast to the best marks they (Donghyuck) have received since middle school. They’re only wiry teenagers but Donghyuck convinces him that that’s the beauty of it all. Mark makes a mental note.

“I have a wish,” Mark blurts. He’s drunk too much at once. The bubbles pop in his nose.

While Mark blinks to cope with the carbonic acid, Donghyuck looks at him in surprise. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Mark replies. “I want to be a good kisser.”

“That’s kind of embarrassing,” Donghyuck says.

Mark agrees.

Donghyuck lifts his hand anyway. The waitress thinks he’s calling her over. Since she’s looking at them so expectantly, tray hugged to her chest, they order some more soda.

Once she’s on her way again, Donghyuck continues, “That’s something you could solve with practice anyway, no?” His ears and fingertips are radiating light so delicate it’s hard to catch in the tacky yellow aura of the lamps.

“I guess,” Mark accedes.

/

“What do you get from a pampered cow?”

Mark blinks. They’re trudging down a desert street arm in arm. He’s trying to leech off Donghyuck’s fever heat, cold-red fingers wrapped around Donghyuck’s wrist. “I don’t know,” he says.

Donghyuck grins and holds up his long-gone ice lolly’s stick, the joke printed on it. Laughs, “Spoiled milk.”

It’s a terrible joke. It really is, but Mark laughs at it anyway. He already laughs at everything but Donghyuck makes him laugh even beyond that. It fits into the whole equation of Donghyuck > everything. Mark’s still trying to figure that one out.

“Would you like to stay over for the night at my place?” Donghyuck asks.

Mark can’t think of a reason to refuse. So they catch a bus to Donghyuck’s. They wander down cramped streets, the neon signs above them starting to flicker on one after the other.

Donghyuck lives above his family’s little convenience store. There’s a narrow stairwell circling around to his front door, easily confused with the identical one right next to it that leads to a bar. They climb up. Donghyuck unlocks the door. Donghyuck’s dad’s sitting in the foyer, reading a newspaper. Mark’s never even seen him before. His weathered skin and air of suppressed animation.

“Hi, dad,” Donghyuck says, kicking his shoes off, unsurprised. “Wouldn’t the living room be a bit more comfortable?”

Mark hovers awkwardly behind Donghyuck’s shoulder. Donghyuck’s dad directs his gaze past Donghyuck’s head and says, “I felt like something would come out of it if I sat here and waited. Hello, Mark.”

“Hello,” Mark squeaks, opening his shoelaces. He catches Donghyuck grinning and kicks his ankle as revenge.

They pad through the flat. They stop off in the kitchen to get ice cream from the freezer, then continue to Donghyuck’s room. Donghyuck’s bed is directly under a window. Moving photos of mountains and the sea and some pop star are speckled over one of the four walls. Mark stops to look at them.

“Magic?” Mark asks. The pop star’s picture winks at him.

Donghyuck walks over. “Of course,” he exhales softly. His breath sweeps over Mark’s shoulder. Cool, ticklish, light. “Watch this.”

Donghyuck taps on the picture and Park Sooyoung (that’s the pop star’s name) turns to look at him with a fond smile. He waves his hand and she waves back. He sticks his tongue out and she sticks her tongue out back at him, pulling at the skin under her left eye.

“Can she talk?” Mark inquires.

Donghyuck laughs. “No, thank god.”

At some point, music starts filtering through the wall. Mark and Donghyuck have settled under covers—Donghyuck on the bed and Mark on a mattress on the floor—and listen to the muffled voice. Sooyoung lets herself dance along a bit.

“Is there always music?” Mark whispers.

Donghyuck rearranges his limbs. “Yeah,” he replies just as quietly, “it’s from the bar next door. I forgot to mention it. Do you need earplugs?”

“No, I’m fine,” Mark says.

Donghyuck sighs and somehow it sounds blue. Streetlight flows in through the window, flooding over the bed’s edges, onto half of Mark’s face. The window’s cracked open because Donghyuck can’t sleep when it’s closed. The song changes.

Like a punch to Mark’s stomach, Donghyuck buzzes, “Remember how I said practice could save you a wish?”

Mark lies utterly still. Then, he sits up and kneels by the bed, perched right above Donghyuck’s face. Donghyuck’s hands are set haphazardly over his stomach like he forgot about them completely. Braces glinting golden. Eyebrows pulled together as though there was something horrible, terrible, regrettably tangible about this all.

Donghyuck saves them both by barking out a single laugh. Jerking back, Mark chuckles shakily, too. Donghyuck’s exhale chases his mouth.

Mark lies back down. Donghyuck sighs again and turns his head towards the window.

/

Two feet come to a halt in front of Mark, socks pulled up and ankles aligned neatly. Only then Mark looks up from the concrete ground of the basketball court at the back of the school.

It’s Kang Seulgi. She’s in another class in the same year. She’s pretty. She’s nice. Boys fall in love. “I think I know what this is about,” she says, cheeks healthy pink.

“I guess it was pretty obvious from the note,” Mark replies dumbly.

Seulgi chuckles. Mark’s mind is blank, everything he’s ever written about her suddenly unattainable. She looks at him with an expectant smile. Toys with a keychain hanging from her bag.

“I like you,” Mark chokes out.

“Yeah,” Seulgi says. Her smile morphs into a gentler one. “I figured.”

Then, she crouches and kisses him. Mark has no clue what he’s doing and he really hopes he’d have had Donghyuck grant his wish after all. Kindly, Seulgi doesn’t comment on his miserable fumbling.

It’s not the same kind of odd tautness as with Donghyuck, but easy and light and fast. Mark translates it as corresponding to the difference between not right and right.

Donghyuck’s just a bundle of magic pushed into his life without warning or pretext. He’s a genie. That is, someone who mainly interacts with him to put his powers to use and accomplish whatever Mark asks of him. Bound to him by a pendant given to him by chance—or at least almost—and not by shared history or common traits (which, Mark’s noticed, are scarce) or a common goal.

This, on the other hand—this is Kang Seulgi, who’s been on Mark’s mind since his first year of high-school. Who he’s written dozens of poems about.

Not meant to be and meant to be. That’s the conclusion Mark comes to.

/

Donghyuck’s fallen ill. Meaning, more ill than he already permanently is. “I’m almost an omelette by now,” he giggles feebly.

Mark lays the back of his hand on Donghyuck’s forehead. It’s like a piece of metal left out in the sun. Burning. Donghyuck reaches up to keep Mark’s hand there, breath gushing out against the back of his wrist.

Wishing he sounds like he’s just commenting on the weather but pretty sure he doesn’t, Mark says, “I confessed to her.”

Donghyuck lets his hand drop to his side. He swallows thickly and unglues his lips from one another. “How’d she react?”

“Kissed me,” Mark says.

Donghyuck whistles somnolently, then turns on his heel to walk to his room. Mark trails behind him. Sooyoung throws Mark a strangely guarded look, hovering at the edge of the picture. She’s obviously concerned about Donghyuck, who slumps onto the bed and crawls under the covers. Mark drags a stool next to the bed and sits.

Multiple times, Donghyuck kicks his duvet off. Mark tucks him back in each time, until he stops struggling and falls asleep.

Donghyuck sleeps with his hands linked above his head. He starts groping around blindly when his shirt rides up and a little section of his skin is exposed to the air outside his cocoon—this always leads to Mark having to pull his shirt down so he would calm down and settle into placid sleep again. These are all things Mark didn’t think to add into his mental file on Donghyuck that previous time.

Now they’re there, though. Mark deems Donghyuck swathed well enough and tiptoes out. In the hallway, he runs into Donghyuck’s dad.

“Is he sleeping?” Donghyuck’s dad asks silently.

“Yeah,” Mark replies, bowing a little. “I’m going to go now.”

Donghyuck’s dad seems to be looking at the pendant around Mark’s neck. He says, “Thank you for coming by. I’m sure it means a lot to him.”

Mark blushes a bit, pleased.

/

Seulgi doesn’t drink coffee. That, Mark didn’t know. What he did know about her is this: she wears scruffy men’s blazers as coats. She coils her earphones around a pencil she carries in her pocket. She’s always grasping something to keep her hands busy. Simple things, really.

They sit bent over the drinks in the corner of a quiet café, ankles knocking together under the table. The metal of the cheap chairs glints mutely and Mark thinks about whatever. Seulgi tells him gentle anecdotes about her friend Yerim who’s in her class.

“She accidentally bought bright red hair dye instead of the light pink she wanted, my god,” Seulgi chuckles, twirling her spoon in her cup of tea.

Mark thinks about the time Donghyuck told him about a wizard he knows called Renjun who replies to virtually all of his texts with different variations of fuck you. Once, Donghyuck asked him to give him a potion to change the colour of his hair to silver. Mark remembers his elated explanation of how he poured exactly seven drops of the potion into a glass of orange juice before bed—like instructed—and woke up with blotches of silver all over his skin.

Mark laughs, half-hearted, and says, “No way.”

(“How long did it last?” Mark asks, quietly surmising stretches of silver on Donghyuck’s tanned skin. He wonders if his observations are crossing the line of scientific objectivity.

“A week, I think. Renjun wouldn’t stop laughing but at least I didn’t have to go to school.”)

“Listen,” Seulgi says, “my friends are having a little party tomorrow and I was wondering if you would like to come?”

Mark looks up, startled. “Yeah?”

Seulgi smiles. Repeats, “Yeah.”

/

The door is opened by Kim Yerim. She scans Mark from head to toes, light and sound flooding into the hallway past her petite frame blocking the doorway. After a few seconds of awkward staring, she turns her head and calls over her shoulder, “Hey, Seulgi! He’s here.”

Seulgi peeks over Yerim’s shoulder. “Hi, Mark,” she greets kindly, pulling him in past Yerim.

On the way through the little crowd of people gathered in the living room, Seulgi stops multiple times to introduce Mark to the others. Mark can’t help noticing he’s virtually the only boy in the room, towering over all the girls with their elaborate hairdos that don’t seem to quite fit their hoodies and sweatpants.

They fall onto the sofa in the corner of the room, next to a table full of drinks. First bad sign. Seulgi has white flowers woven into her braided hair. A sterling necklace resting on her collarbone. She flings her legs over Mark’s lap and settles deeper into the pillows.

Mark doesn’t know why he assumed otherwise, but Seulgi isn’t massively good at holding her alcohol. Mark isn’t exactly alert, either. Otherwise, Seulgi toying with his pendant would have maybe rung some kind of alarm in his head. And he wouldn’t have told her about the poems, probably.

Next thing Mark knows there’s Yerim opening the door and going, “What the hell—Hyuck-ah?”

/

The fever’s apparent in the droop of Donghyuck’s eyes and in the slipshod state of his hair. All he says when he opens the door for Mark is, “Oh.” Not hello or you brought ice cream? or I missed you.

Donghyuck’s piled the sofa high with pillows and blankets. He crawls on top, then pats the spot next to him, beckoning Mark to join him.

“I’m not going to get infected, am I?” Mark asks, as if he isn’t obeying already.

Donghyuck gives him a numb look and hums, “You’re germy all the time and you can’t hear me complaining.”

Mark scoffs. He opens a cone’s wrapping for Donghyuck. He can feel Donghyuck’s illness, thick in his throat, curdling the air around them. Maybe he could even hold it in the palm of his hand. There’s a talk show on the tv. Donghyuck watches it like he can’t even hear any of it.

Donghyuck falls asleep, the ice cream melting on his hands. Mark pries the cone out of his hands and fetches napkins from the kitchen and holds Donghyuck by the wrist, wiping his fingers. Donghyuck looks so ridiculously childish, unable to stay awake long enough to finish eating, cheek squished against a pillow, sleepy dust gathered at the corners of his eyes.

Until the end of the talk show, Mark sits listlessly. Then, he realises he should be leaving and makes to get up.

Donghyuck gets startled out of his fevered slumber. “Where are you going?” he asks, eyes stunned and confused. Mark realises what it is—the thing altered in him by the heat of the sickness. It’s like all the magic’s been drained, scrubbed, purged out of him.

“To a party,” Mark replies softly.

Donghyuck rubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms, mumbling, “Do you have to?”

“I promised,” Mark says, and goes.

/

Donghyuck isn’t happy but that’s hardly a surprise. He’s in his pyjamas again, knees red and breaths white and the rims of his eyes pink. His eyes flicker to Mark and Seulgi’s interlaced fingers so fast Mark barely catches it. His cheeks are glowing the brightest Mark’s ever seen them.

Seulgi obviously knows Donghyuck. She coos his name and reaches over to pinch his cheek. He doesn’t flinch away. Instead, he gives Mark an unbelievably nasty but sad look past her head while the corner of his mouth is pulled to the right.

“What are you doing here?” Mark asks. His mind skirts around something he obviously should’ve caught onto already, but there’s a whole wall of alcohol in the way.

Donghyuck’s cheek’s still being pulled as he snaps, “Are you for real, Mark?”

Mark can barely retain his brain from putting the face in front of him under the same file he puts the puppy videos his friend Jaemin sometimes sends him. “Yeah?”

That’s when Donghyuck steps around Seulgi and punches Mark. It’s not an impossibly hard hit but it’s enough to draw blood out of his nose. Mark deletes the whole fucking puppy video file because that was _not_ cute.

Yeri’s hooting something about having taught Donghyuck that. Seulgi sits back down. Everyone else’s stopped to look.

“You summoned me, twat,” Donghyuck spits, then turns to leave.

Mark runs after him out of the flat and down the hall, holding a napkin someone handed him in his haste to follow Donghyuck to his nose. Once they’re out of the building, Donghyuck’s too exhausted to be angry anymore. He throws a few more obscenities Mark’s way before he settles into tired silence. The insults scatter around Mark’s feet.

“I’m sorry,” Mark offers.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck says, completely deflated, “I hate you. We’re going to my place.”

There’s a three-metre distance between them Mark doesn’t dare breach. In the otherwise empty night bus he sits across the aisle from Donghyuck. He spends his time looking at Donghyuck’s reflection in the window and breathing loudly through his mouth. Donghyuck tells him to shut up but he can’t.

They tiptoe through Donghyuck’s family’s flat. Mark’s still feeling a bit fuzzy even though Donghyuck’s knuckles did a pretty good job of clearing the fog in his head. They arrive in Donghyuck’s room, standing in the cold pool of moonlight on the rug.

“Fuck you, you’re sleeping on the floor,” Donghyuck whispers. He doesn’t need to change so he slips into his bed straight away.

Mark wonders for a second, then lies down on the hard ground. He makes out Sooyoung gesturing wildly and mouthing something, highly elated. She disappears from the frame for a bit before returning with a whiteboard that reads _jackass!!!_

Donghyuck turns around under the covers to peer at Mark. “Are you actually just lying there? I can’t believe—” He kicks the covers off and tugs Mark upright. He gets a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants from his closet. Makes Mark raise his arms so he can tug his shirt off and replace it with a fresh one, then snaps at him to change into the sweatpants.

Donghyuck pushes Mark into the bathroom. He sits Mark down on the closed lid of the toilet and brings ice for his nose from the kitchen.

“You know Seulgi?” Mark finally chokes out.

Donghyuck busies himself rearranging the tubes of hand creams and toothpaste and foundation on the edge of the sink in order according to their size and colour. “Yeah, I do,” he replies. “I used to go to the dojo her family runs. My parents insist you have to know at least a bit of dragon techniques to fend for yourself in a big city like this.”

“Dragon techniques?” Mark repeats.

Donghyuck lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah. You were in a room full of dragons and you didn’t know?”

Mark blinks. The bathroom’s so small he could press his face against Donghyuck’s stomach if Donghyuck took half a step his way. But Donghyuck stays put, leaning heavily against the sink, watching him. The music from next door reaches the bathroom too, apparently.

/

Seulgi: _u still awake??_ (received 3:56 am)

Mark’s disentangled himself from Donghyuck, woken by the buzz of his phone. He squints at the message. The last song just ended on the other side of the wall.

Mark: _Yeah_ (sent 3:57 am)

Seulgi: _how’s Hyuck?_ (received 4:01 am)

Mark turns to look. Donghyuck’s been mumbling quietly for the past hour, legs tangled in the duvet, and Mark’s been staring at Sooyoung giving him the bras d’honneur. She obviously knows about what happened and isn’t very happy about it. How she found out, Mark doesn’t have the energy to even wonder.

Mark: _Okay I guess. I hope he won’t get any sicker_ (sent 4:03 am)

Mark: _So you’re a dragon huh_ (sent 4:03 am)

Seulgi: _I was going to tell u... at some point hehe wanna go bowling tomorrow??_ (received 4:04 am)

Mark: _Sure_ (sent 4:04 am)

Mark: _What time?_ (sent 4:04 am)

Seulgi: _is 4 ish okay for u_ (received 4:05 am)

Mark: _Sounds good_ (sent 4:05 am)

Mark: _I’m going to sleep now so see you tomorrow_ (sent 4:05 am)

Seulgi: _today**** yerim says sleep tight <3<3 _(received 4:06 am)

Mark climbs back into bed. Donghyuck face plants on his chest. Mark can feel the heat of his forehead and the tickle of his humid breaths through his t-shirt. Sooyoung shakes her head, exasperated.

/

“I hope you apologised to him,” Seulgi says, sending a ball down the lane. It knocks down three pins.

Mark apologised, over their meagre breakfast of toast without anything on top they ate in the hum of the coffee machine way past noon, so he says, “I did.” Donghyuck merely nodded. The toast so dry it stuck to Mark’s palate.

Seulgi watches Mark gear up for a throw. “You like him, don’t you?” she asks.

Mark misses the throw—of course he does—and stutters, “I’m dating you?”

“Yeah,” Seulgi admits, like an afterthought. Mark’s watching the ball roll and roll and roll to avoid looking at her. She sounds barely marginally disturbed, “but he’s pretty cute, no? _And_ he has magic powers. I don’t blame you.”

Mark turns around finally to look at Seulgi imitating the scintillating pops of magic with her hands. The worst part is that he rummages through all of his mental files but can’t find much to rebut her obvious belief that he’s head over heels for Donghyuck. “You’re magic, too, though?” he squeaks.

“Tell you what.” Seulgi cocks her hips to the left. She picks up a pink ball and gesticulates with it. “If I win this round, you treat me to noodles and then go get Lee Donghyuck.”

“How can you be so sure I like him?”

Seulgi simply smiles and taps on her nose. “It’s a dragon thing.”

Mark sighs. “And if I win?”

“You don’t have to buy me food but you still have to woo him,” Seulgi concludes with a shrug.

Mark wins. He buys Seulgi a cup of instant noodles anyway.

Mark has difficulties believing Seulgi really isn’t bothered at all. When he asks her if she’s really fine, she kisses him on the cheek, pats him on the back and says, “There are things way beyond high school flings. Oh, and take a shower or something, right now you’re parading around letting everyone know you’ve spent the night cuddling a boy.”

/

Mark’s mom opens the door and accidentally hits him in the head with it. She steps over him carefully. Looking down at him, barely moving her mouth, she asks, “What are you doing on the floor?”

“Thinking,” Mark replies, because he’s trying not to.

Mark’s surrounded by shreds of paper. They’re fragments of the poems he’s written. He isn’t so sure anymore who he was writing them about and what Seulgi meant by _a dragon thing_ and if he’s the only one who’s confused.

Mark’s mom sets down a bowl of stir-fried rice next to his shoulder. “Eat up, you’ll be able to think clearer,” she orders, then pitter-patters back out of Mark’s bedroom.

Mark wonders what the hell happened.

/

There are only so many days Donghyuck can avoid his duty of working at the till in his family’s two-aisle store downstairs from their flat. His eyes are still pink-rimmed, droopy, and his voice sticks in his throat. Still, he sits slumped behind the counter.

Mark pretends to examine the different brands of salsas. “I saw you the second you walked in, loser,” Donghyuck eventually quips over the shelf, squashing Mark’s plan to surprise him.

Donghyuck disappears in the back of the store. He re-emerges with a little stool that he sets down behind the counter for Mark to sit on. Mark folds his legs. Only the top of his head from his eyes upwards is visible over the edge of the counter.

Mark’s only halfway through his biology homework when two young men walk in. Donghyuck tenses and lets a little smile slip, abandoning his tabloid magazine, obviously waiting for the pair to come around to the till.

“Cadet Lee,” the shorter—but taller than Donghyuck—one says when they bring their snacks of choice to Donghyuck. All three of them are standing straight as ramrods, suppressing grins. Mark straightens his back to peek over the counter.

“Lieutenant Jung, Captain Seo,” Donghyuck shoots back, even making a military salute.

They hold their positions and feigned serious faces until finally the taller guy can’t keep his laughter in anymore and reaches over the counter to ruffle Donghyuck’s hair, greeting him tenderly, “Hey, Duckie.”

“Hi, Youngho,” Donghyuck says. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We heard you were summoned for the first time,” Youngho replies over Donghyuck’s protests (“You’re so late, that was ages ago!”). He notices Mark and the corner of his mouth curls up.

The other guy cranes his neck to look at Mark. “Who’s this?”

Mark scrambles to his feet. “I’m Mark,” he introduces himself. When Youngho and the other guy just keep looking at him like they’re waiting for an elaboration he panics and adds, “I’m seventeen?”

Donghyuck squeezes his eyes shut in mutual embarrassment. The guy replies with a laugh, “My name’s Jaehyun and I’m nineteen years old.”

“I’m twenty-one,” Youngho tells Mark once he’s reached over to shake his hand and told him his name. Mark thinks his ears are going to melt off.

There’s a long talk about what each of them has been up to in the few weeks they haven’t apparently seen and Mark goes back to his homework. Donghyuck’s dad calls him to come help him with something upstairs. Donghyuck leaves. Mark’s left alone with Youngho and Jaehyun.

Youngho opens the bag of crisps he hasn’t even paid for yet. “How do you know Donghyuck?”

“I summoned him by accident,” Mark explains.

Youngho and Jaehyun both lean forward in interest. “Oh, _you’re_ the one who summoned him?” Jaehyun asks, half-chewed crisps flashing through his teeth. He and Youngho are wearing adidas track suits, similar to the ones Donghyuck most often wears when he shows up on his own accord. Mark’s starting to become sure it’s a genie thing after all.

“Yeah, I am,” Mark affirms hesitantly.

Mark contemplates whether he should ask why it’s so important. Jaehyun saves him the effort by going on, “You never know what the summoner’s like. Usually most devices are only handed to people worthy or otherwise meant to have them, but sometimes there are breaches and they end up in wrong hands. Just last year there was a guy who got stabbed by his summoner downtown. Absurd, right?”

“We were really worried for Donghyuck,” Youngho picks up where Jaehyun left off, “so it’s a relief to see you seem nice.”

“Oh,” Mark says. He remembers Donghyuck’s then strange relief when Mark opened the door for the first time, not sure how to feel about being immediately written off as harmless.

Youngho chuckles. “Don’t worry, it’s very rare that someone gets hurt. And Donghyuck’s friends with a whole guild of dragons—” (“And us,” Jaehyun chimes.) “—right, and us. And the scariest of them all, Renjun and his mentor Doyoung. You would have to have a death wish to mess with him.”

Mark hums. A minute later Donghyuck’s back.

/

Mark lies on his bed. His bedroom’s walls are pasted full of poems. Holes here and there where the slips of paper have been torn off.

He recalls a night—the last before his parents’ favourite cinema was closed—he spent in the track-suited neighbour’s care. The curved, uncomfortable backs of the kitchen chairs and the shiny parquet and the grainy white countertops. The rag rug and the plastic cups and the plates with flower ornaments.

While Mark sat on three pillows to reach his plate of apple crumble properly, she’d asked him what he wanted most in the world. Anything? he’d asked and she’d said with a chuckle, “Anything but more Lego’s. You have too many of those already.”

“I want to marry someone I love,” Mark replied, words rushing to get out of the way of the spoonful of apple crumble he was about to stuff into his mouth.

The neighbour laughed. “That’s why people usually get married, silly. Of course you’re going to marry someone you love.” But she’d snapped her fingers under the table already without Mark noticing.

Roughly eleven years later, Mark wonders if Donghyuck’s noticed—and if he has, why he hasn’t said anything about it.

/

“You would just make it worse,” Donghyuck laughs when Mark asks if he can help with making spring onion pancakes. Mark spends his time peering over Donghyuck’s shoulder while he chops the onions and measures ingredients for the batter. Donghyuck mixes the batter and a _ccidentally_ —that’s what he says—elbows Mark in the ribs in the process.

“I kind of understand now why I thought I was in love with Seulgi,” Mark admits before he can stop himself. It’s been a black spot at the edge of his vision for a while now. A bit longer and he would’ve probably become blinded by it completely.

Donghyuck turns around, a bottle of frying oil and a spatula in his hand. His mouth’s parted in disbelief. “Thought?” he echoes.

“I think it was because I was so used to liking her. Or something. Plus she’s super nice, she deserved much better than me,” Mark figures.

“True,” Donghyuck notes. Mark almost feels offended. “What’s your point, though?”

Mark goes quiet for a moment. He backtracks to the beginning and starts again. “Have you noticed anything special in your pockets lately?”

“Pockets?” Donghyuck repeats, frowning. He cranes his neck forward in that funny way he always does when he’s confused. “Which pockets?”

“Your, uh. Your jacket’s pockets?”

The pancake’s about to burn, probably. Donghyuck doesn’t bat an eye. “What was I supposed to find there?”

“Poems,” Mark squeaks past the lump in his throat.

Donghyuck’s probably figured it out by now. If not, he’s a bit of an idiot. But then again, Mark has a feeling they’ve both been complete morons for some time now.

“ _Oh_. Well, fuck,” Donghyuck blurts. “That jacket’s a bit special. You know Mary Poppins’ bag? The bottomless one?”

Mark knows where this is going. He hides his face behind his hands. “Oh my god. Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Did I never tell you? Whatever you put into the pockets goes to this weird void. I’m pretty sure that’s where my first hamster went, even though my parents always told me it ran away,” Donghyuck continues. Mark very earnestly wishes for magic to go choke. “We could go try and fish the poems out, though?”

That’s how they end up kneeling by the coat hanger in the foyer. Donghyuck’s shoulder-deep in the left pocket, tongue peeking out through the corner of his mouth. Scattered around their feet, the bus cards and coins and detention slips and keys and gloves and sweets Donghyuck pulls out.

Mark’s just about to say they should forget about it when a victorious smile blooms over Donghyuck face. He takes his hand, clenched around a piece of paper, out of his jacket’s pocket and falls onto his butt to read through it. Mark sits on his heels.

Mark refuses to look at it. Donghyuck looks at it for a long, long time. He only reads aloud the first line (“ _Ice cold, baby,_ ” voice bated) before he falls to the floor and drags Mark with him. They land in the middle of smelly and less smelly shoes. There’s half a sneaker under Mark’s left shoulder but he isn’t about to say anything. Donghyuck breathes against his neck. Deep, warm, shaky. The foyer isn’t big enough for them to straighten their legs so they fit them between each other’s.

Mark cups Donghyuck’s cheeks and makes him look up. When he makes to kiss him, the glow of Donghyuck’s ears intensifies even further. He turns his head away a little. “Not, uh—not yet, please.” His cheeks are still squished between Mark’s palms, his bottom lip jutting out.

“Okay,” Mark says. Donghyuck buries his face in the junction between Mark’s shoulder and neck again. Mark runs a hand from between his shoulder blades all the way to the nape of his neck and looks at the ceiling until the fire alarm goes off and Donghyuck has to run to the kitchen.

/

Seulgi sits down next to Mark in the canteen. She puts her metal tray down beside his and says, “Have you fulfilled your promise yet?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mark replies, setting down his utensils.

Seulgi starts stuffing her face. “You actually did it! I’m impressed.” She offers him her dessert as a congratulatory present but he refuses it as politely as he can. She shrugs and moves on, “So, is he better at kissing than I am?”

“I don’t know,” Mark admits.

Seulgi waves he spoon around. Her left cheek’s full and round with food. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I just. I haven’t kissed him yet. He said he wasn’t ready for it,” Mark confesses, trying to seem as unassuming as possible as Jaemin comes over to the table and sits across from him.

Seulgi shoots a quick and sweet hi Jaemin’s way. In the same breath still, she curses, “Damn, that’s adorable.”

“Right?” Mark agrees, then tunes in on Jaemin’s recounting of something that happened at football practice.

/

Donghyuck isn’t sick anymore. Mark counts all the hours and nights he spent practically asking to catch his illness and wonders why he didn’t. The whole thing seems supernatural.

Apparently, it was. That’s what Sooyoung tells Mark with that whiteboard of hers, typing out in her surprisingly wonky handwriting, _he was LOVESICK you tool. that’s what happens when SOMEONE lets you think it isn’t mutual._ She rolls her eyes as if Mark was somehow supposed to know that, succeeding in making him feel bad regardless.

Throughout the sweeping spring, Mark fears Donghyuck’ll grow tired of him. He doesn’t want to wish for them to stay together forever because he would rather keep magic out of it. He knows he would probably have to die to detach himself from Donghyuck definitely, but he doesn’t want to create the same sentiment in Donghyuck artificially.

The main reason why Mark doesn’t wish for easy success in his final exams before his graduation either is that he would rather concentrate on studying than the twenty possible scenarios of how Donghyuck could dump him. The exams come around and he passes, of course, and Donghyuck sleeps through his graduation ceremony, of course.

After the ceremony Mark heads to Donghyuck’s place, ditching the celebratory lunch under the pretext of feeling a bit unwell. He sits in the underground with his lap full of flowers and his diploma in his hand.

The doorbell wakes Donghyuck, who opens the front door with the dumbest smile and kisses Mark on the cheek, tiptoeing shakily on the edge of the threshold to avoid having to step on the cold concrete of the landing. They go to Donghyuck’s room. Mark drops his pile of bouquets on the floor.

“So what’s next?” Donghyuck asks, sitting cross-legged on his bed with his elbows on the windowsill. Down in the street cars pass like gusts of wind.

Mark knows he means university, but he shrugs off his tacky uniform blazer he’ll never have to iron again and climbs on the bed and replies, “Summer.”

/

Donghyuck’s the kind of person you think would tell everyone about his birthday. Lean out of his window, goose bumps popping over his bare chest because he never sleeps with a shirt on in the summer, and holler about it to the torpid neighbourhood. I’m seventeen, suck it! Or something along those lines.

Mark ends up hearing about it from Youngho. They run into each other in an intersection, Mark waiting for the green man to replace the red and Youngho on his way to one of the dozens of magic sale spots scattered around the city. “Hop on,” Youngho exhorts, pulling over. So Mark does.

The car’s just as messy as a young adult’s car can be expected to be. The backseat’s filled with baseball bats and empty take out bags and shoes. Among the mess there’s a little Donghyuck-sized space. Youngho explains that’s where Donghyuck sits and burns his scented candles.

“Is that safe?” Mark asks, opting for the front seat.

Yougho switches the turn signal on. “Probably not.”

Jaehyun’s busy sifting the coins out of their wishing well and counting them. Youngho tells Mark they’ll have to pick him up later but first they have to go find Park Chanyeol. A half-elf who sells all kinds of stuff from the drive through latch of the McDonald’s across the street from the central hospital, he elaborates. Watching the streets pass, Mark nods.

“Is Chanyeol there?” Youngho says into the microphone in response to the employee’s strained _Hi welcome to McDonald’s can I get your order?_ The girl sighs. She’s obviously bent her mouthpiece attached to her headphones away from her mouth but Mark and Youngho still catch her saying something about Chanyeol’s drug business getting out of control.

“Proceed to the second latch, please,” the girl finally says.

The latch is opened by a young man with elfish ears sticking out from under his McDonald’s cap. “Hey, Youngho! How are you? Who’s this dude?” he booms with a very wide smile. His voice’s low, low, low.

“I’m good,” Youngho replies, leaning out to shake hands with Chanyeol. He pulls Mark towards his side so Chanyeol can see him. “Chanyeol, meet Mark. Donghyuck’s boyfriend.”

“Oh, cool,” Chanyeol comments.

Mark lifts a hand in greeting and tries not to blush. “Nice to meet you.”

“Do you have what I asked you to get?” Youngho asks, and Mark wonders if it’s really going to be some brain-frying magic dust he’s going to snort off the dashboard, but turns out it’s just a banal little box Chanyeol fetches from the back room.

Youngho hands over a considerable wad of money and Chanyeol pockets it, rolling, “May I ask who or what it’s for? These are very hard to find, I almost couldn’t manage it.”

“Donghyuck’s birthday’s coming up in a few days,” Youngho replies. He hands the box over to Mark. Mark opens it. It holds a small vial attached to a string, decorated with swirls of the different shades of midnight. It’s filled with transparent liquid thick like honey, climbing up and down the glass walls as Mark tilts it from one side to the other.

Chanyeol whistles. “Tell him I said happy birthday, yeah?”

“Sure, man. See you.” They drive off, joining the stream of cars going towards the eastern side of the city. Mark munches on the complementary chicken nuggets Chanyeol gave to them before they left.

They stop at a red light. “What’s this for?” Mark asks. He makes sure to wipe the grease off his fingers onto his thigh before he picks up the vial again.

Youngho glances away from the road. “You can catch time with it, memories. You could basically capture a whole year as long as you don’t close the vial midway. But you only have one chance,” he answers, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. The window’s cracked open, alleviating the pungent smell of lavender and vanilla clinging to the seats and the ceiling.

“Sounds cool,” Mark says. Remembers, “I didn’t know Donghyuck’s birthday was so soon.”

Youngho chuckles, plopping a nugget into his mouth. “Oh, yeah, he hates making a big deal out of it. Maybe we should surprise him this year, though.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, maybe we could take him to the sea.” He pulls up at the entrance of an alley. “There’s Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun jogs over, a soiled bag in his hand. He climbs onto the back seat and lowers the bag on his lap. The coins inside clink with every breath he takes. “Twenty thousand,” he announces triumphantly.

“Not bad,” Youngho hoots. “Listen, we were talking about maybe taking Hyuck to the sea for his birthday.”

Jaehyun reaches over to the front to steal a chicken nugget. “Sounds good,” he says easily.

When it’s Mark’s time to get off Jaehyun clambers out to circle around to the front seat, the front of his sweatpants completely soaked. Mark lets out a big guffaw. Youngho hits his head against the steering wheel so hard the car honks.

Mark: _[image]_ (sent 4:32pm)

Donghyuck: _omg_ (received 4:34pm)

Donghyuck: _last time i saw jae pee his pants was when he tried to ask doyoung out_ (received 4:34pm)

Mark: _UR SO DEAD_ (sent 4:36pm)

Mark: _I WAS 13 YO WEVE BEEN THROUGH THIS_ (sent 4:36pm)

Donghyuck: _oh fuck me is this jaehyun lmaooo_ (received 4:37)

/

Seungwan calls. Mark knows she’s just come home because of her breath drawn heavy by the long climb up to her floor and the sound of heels being dropped to the ground in the background. The rustle of grocery bags as she says, “I think I’m really late with this.”

“Late with what?” Mark asks. He clamps the phone between his shoulder and his ear.

“I was walking home and there were a couple stars in the sky. Suddenly I remembered the shopkeeper from the summer. The one who gave you that necklace—you remember him, right?” Seungwan babbles, picking up her grocery bags.

“Yeah,” Mark says. “I remember him.”

“Right, so he asked me if you were my boyfriend. I said no, of course, ‘cause that would be gross, so then he said the strangest thing. He said something about finding the right constellation. When I saw those stars it got me thinking. I googled it and there’s actually a constellation called Lupus. Like on the little paper, you know!”

Mark takes the necklace off and opens the locket. The folded paper’s still there, with the same loopy text. “What do you think it means?” he asks, hoping Seungwan would have figured it all out already.

But Seungwan says, “No clue,” and Mark can hear her smile in her half-deliberate clueless way.

/

“Are you kidnapping me?” Donghyuck croaks.

Youngho pulls Donghyuck out of his bed and starts helping him change out of his pyjamas. Donghyuck doesn’t resist, lifting his arms when Youngho asks him to, eyes still shut. Mark watches on, forgetting he was supposed to go through the wardrobe in search of Donghyuck’s swimming trunks.

“Okay, here we go,” Youngho says and gathers Donghyuck in his arms despite his half-numb complaints. Mark trails behind Youngho, carrying Donghyuck’s sneakers and swimming trunks.

The streetlight are still on. The sky’s that cobalt shade of blue of right before sunrise. Youngho coaxes the car awake and guides it out of the city. He rolls the window down a bit and Jaehyun turns the radio down low.

Mark makes sure Donghyuck’s fast asleep. Only then he scoots forward to ask, “Do you happen to know what Lupus means? The constellation, I mean.”

Jaehyun stops fiddling with the plushie keychain hanging from the rear-view mirror. “Depends on where it’s written,” he says.

Mark takes the pendant off and holds it out towards Jaehyun. “And if it’s in this locket?”

Jaehyun takes the pendant. He opens the locket and unfolds the paper. He squints at it in the dim early morning light. “This is Donghyuck’s summoning device, right?” he asks. Mark nods. “Wow, um. Well, I think you should maybe look for it on Donghyuck.”

Mark takes the pendant back. “Like. On his skin or something?”

“Yeah, that’s where it’ll probably be,” Youngho pipes in.

Mark leans back and chews it through.

/

Youngho lifts Donghyuck under the arms while Jaehyun grabs his ankles. They carry him all the way from the car to the water, then throw him in, clothes and all.

Donghyuck sits in the shallow water. “Traitors!” he exclaims, sticking his tongue out at the three others standing on the shore.

Mark changes into his swimming trunks in one of the striped changing cabins bordering the beach. He wades to Donghyuck, who’s kneading the sand with his hands. Mark sits down next to him.

“How’s it going, gorgeous?” Mark asks, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand.

Donghyuck snorts and flicks water at Mark’s face. “That’s gross,” he comments. “But to answer your question, first I was forced out of my bed by a band of hooligans—one of them was kinda cute though—and then I was thrown into the sea with my clothes on.”

“So, good?” Mark concludes.

Mouth curving into a heart shape, Donghyuck smiles. Looks somewhere far off. “Yeah, pretty good.”

Only when their fingers have gone wrinkly Donghyuck gets up. Mark follows him back to the shore. The sun-warmed sand burns at the soles of their feet on their way to the shower on the side of one of the cabins. Not patient enough to decide on turns, they wrap their arms around each other’s waists to fit under the same stream of water. Donghyuck’s skin is sizzling, glossed over by sunlight.

“You should put sunscreen on or whatever,” Jaehyun says when Mark and Donghyuck finally hop to the spot he and Youngho have chosen.

Donghyuck puts way too much sunscreen on Mark. He ends up looking like all those kids with white streaks on their faces and sun-dazed mannerisms. Donghyuck laughs at his own handiwork and kisses Mark above the eyebrow.

The rest of the day goes a bit like this: Mark and Donghyuck bury Youngho under a humongous pile of sand and Youngho pretends to be asleep to amuse them. The vendor of the ice cream stall starts handing Mark the cones before he even orders after the fifth time he runs to the stall to get ice cream for Donghyuck.

Finally, they climb back into the car and drive back home. Because his other clothes were still a bit wet, Donghyuck’s changed into his swimming trunks. Mark thinks he sees one of the candles melting against his side.

And they sing happy birthday, of course. Jaehyun hands Donghyuck his present. Donghyuck unbuckles his belt and leans over the centre console to kiss both Youngho and Jaehyun on the cheek.

/

There’s barely enough space on the cake for seventeen candles. Sitting on the floor in front of the cake, Donghyuck watches Mark light them one by one.

Mark flips the lighter shut, straightens up and says, “It’s your turn to make a wish.”

Donghyuck blows the candles out in three tries. Their light seems to find a new life in his cheeks and fingertips, warding off the velvet veil of dusk. He waits for a few seconds. When nothing extraordinary happens, he lifts his gaze to Mark, unsure.

Mark shrugs. Not everyone can just accomplish wishes like that. “What did you wish for?”

Donghyuck lifts an eyebrow. “I thought you’re not supposed to tell anyone or it won’t work.”

“Come on, Donghyuck,” Mark whines. “I tell you all of mine.”

Donghyuck doesn’t tell. What he does is push the cake out of the way and scoot closer to Mark. “Ready?” he whispers, as if he isn’t the one who’s been gathering up the courage for an eternity.

The kiss is the lovechild of scintilla and sea salt. Donghyuck’s tongue drags a blistering trail over Mark’s bottom lip and Mark swears his body temperature rises by a degree or two. He mumbles this observation against the flesh of Donghyuck’s lips.

Donghyuck pulls away, asking, “For real?”

Mark hopes nodding would bring Donghyuck back into his arms. Instead it sends him to the bathroom to fetch a thermometer. Donghyuck climbs on his lap, kisses him silly again and sticks the thermometer in his mouth before the string of saliva between them has even snapped.

“What’s it say?”

“You were right,” Donghyuck says. “It really did go up.”

After a few minutes Mark’s temperature is back to normal. Donghyuck wonders aloud how high he could get it and Mark braces himself.

/

When they settle down to sleep their hair’s still a bit damp from the showers they took to wash off the clumps of cake they threw at each other. Mark googles the constellation. Donghyuck leans his chin on his shoulder, the pale light clinging to his cheeks and the corners of his mouth, and asks what Mark needs the grainy picture for.

“Could you lie down?” Mark asks. Donghyuck gives him a funny look but complies, straightening out on the mattress with a sigh.

It’s not on his chest or on his arms or on his hands or on his shins. It’s on his upper thigh, peeking out from under his shorts. A formation of moles, carbon copy of the Lupus constellation. Mark smiles ridiculously wide and doesn’t even exactly know why. It’s a bit like that with magic.

“What is it?” Donghyuck asks, scooting over so Mark can lie down next to him.

Mark kisses the corner of Donghyuck’s mouth. “Nothing.”

Donghyuck scoffs but lets it drop. He reaches over Mark to the bedside table, heel of his palm digging into Mark’s chest. He picks up the vial, pops it open and puts it back down.

They go to sleep. Sooyoung’s off to a holiday in the Canary Islands, however that works. The vial stays open until morning. It catches Donghyuck waking up somewhere around three o’clock and sitting up to look out of the window, his glowing hands hanging over the sill.

/

Mark runs into Seulgi on the eighth dock of the southern train station. She’s sitting on her luggage, waiting for her train to her uncle’s farm in the mountains. He’s just stumbled out of the photo booth by the drinking fountain with Donghyuck’s hand in his. It’s the only booth he knows of that prints the smallest format. “Finally?” she asks.

Mark finishes exchanging the slip of paper in the locket with a dumb picture of Donghyuck pulling on his ears and crossing his eyes. “Finally,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> thx for bearing with me  
> hyuck still lives next door to a gay bar btw


End file.
